Mysterious Cat wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 9:41 pm
Bodybuilders, who have to both build muscle and keep off fat, generally do not eat any sweets.
Sugar is just a complex carbohydrate, and so is starch. Starch can come in various forms, like potatoes and rice and white flour. Note this is important for us diabetics. Those are all things I'm supposed to avoid.
Now go read about the various Marvel actors who have to maintain those really cut bodies. First of all, most of them were in really good shape to start with. However prior to doing a Marvel movie they generally spend a few months prior to shooting working with a personal trainer to give them that "superhero" body. This includes not only workouts, but very strict diets.
I saw an interview with Chris Evans (Captain America) where he commented that he was so tired of eating nothing but boiled chicken and white rice every two hours. That was literally his diet. A proper mix of protein and carbs, on regular and fairly frequent schedule. Not large amounts, but constantly. The carbs are necessary for the very reason you mentioned; if your body doesn't have them it uses whatever calories you take in to build as much fat as it can. In order to be stupidly cut like Chris Evans or Chris Hemsworth or any of the other of those actors (even including Robert Downey Junior and Paul Rudd) that's what you have to do.
Even Scarlett Johansen isn't immune. She said once "I try never to get more than three months from catsuit." Meaning it was a pain in the ass to look like she did in those movies, but she couldn't let herself go too far between them.
I also saw an interview with Alicia Vikander after she did
Tomb Raider. She's a very small person and wasn't very strong to begin with, so in order to play super adventurer Lara Croft she spent six months training. After filming when she stopped training, she said it only took her two weeks to lose it all. Which is kinda crazy because she's still gorgeous, but she lost all that muscle tone it took her months to attain in only a fortnight.
Or take another more extreme example. Hugh Jackman got ripped to play Wolverine in those various movies. In particular in
The Wolverine he looked insanely defined. It actually was insane. In order to maintain that definition he would
severely dehydrate himself. In many of those scenes he was close to collapse. No one asked him to do this. It was his idea, based on advice from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.